Arts in the News

Folk Music

Eddie Adcock won this year’s Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, a distinction which entails a $50,000 cash prize. Adcock, 76, a past Grammy Award nominee, began his career sharing the stage with bluegrass musicians like Bill Monroe. He later joinedCountry Gentlemen, a pioneering bluegrass group that toured and released music during the ’50s and ’60s. Adcock received this award after trudging through a slew of medical issues. In 2007, he underwent a series of brain surgeries to fix tremors in his right hand. In his last few surgeries, Adcock played his banjo to help doctors identify which part of his brain to treat.

Theater

The BEAT (Brooklyn Emerging Artists in Theater)festival kicked off Sept. 10 in Brooklyn and runs through Sept. 20. This is the third run of the 10-day, almost entirely outdoor, festival, which stretches from Sunset Park to East New York and includes dance, theater and music in various public spaces. Improvised “stages” for this year’s festival include a farmers market, Green-Wood Cemetery, and Barclays Center plaza. The goal of the festival is to immerse participants in the art, a sentiment emphasized by the festival’s official hashtag, “#FollowTheBEAT.”

Art & Archaeology

This semester marks the start of an innovative program that links the University of Missouri with the Capitoline Museums in Rome, giving students a hands-on opportunity to study ancient artifacts. Students are now able to research and catalog the 249 Roman-era artifacts (black-glazed pottery) that were lent to the University of Missouri by the museums. The museum’s repository covers 150 years of excavations, far too many to be studied by the museum staff alone. The objects will be returned with thorough academic history that the museums could not provide on their own. In exchange, students in the Midwest will gain valuable experience with Mediterranean archaeology.